First Nations, Métis and Inuit, 1914–1929: Policies, Resistance and Organizing

Remember from Grade 8

In Grade 8 you learned how the Indian Act (1876) gave the federal government sweeping control over First Nations, how residential schools grew after the 1880s, and how Dr. Peter Bryce reported deadly conditions in 1907 that the government ignored. In 1914–1929, the government made these policies harsher, even as many First Nations soldiers fought for Canada overseas.

Tightening control (B2.5)

The official in charge of Indian Affairs from 1913 to 1932 was Duncan Campbell Scott. In 1920 he told a parliamentary committee that the goal was to continue "until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic". That goal, assimilation, rested on the racist belief that First Nations cultures were inferior and should disappear.

• Compulsory attendance (1920): an amendment to the Indian Act made school attendance compulsory for First Nations children aged 7 to 15. Indian agents and police could take children to residential schools far from home; parents who resisted could be fined or jailed. Others attended day schools near home, which also aimed at assimilation. By 1923 the older "industrial schools" had been merged into the residential school system.
• Inside the schools: children were punished for speaking their languages, separated from brothers and sisters, given poor food and crowded, unhealthy buildings, and made to do heavy work. Many were harmed. Disease, especially tuberculosis, killed many children. Some never came home.
• Compulsory enfranchisement (1920–1922): the government gave itself the power to remove a person's Indian status without consent. First Nations protested strongly, and it was repealed in 1922.
• Banning ceremonies: the bans on the potlatch and other ceremonies continued. After a potlatch at Village Island ('Mimkwamlis), B.C., in December 1921, dozens of Kwakwaka'wakw people were arrested in early 1922, about 20 were jailed, and ceremonial regalia was taken; some of it has since been returned and is cared for by the U'mista Cultural Centre.
• The pass system continued on the Prairies, limiting people's freedom to leave their reserves.
• Land: reserve land was taken for Soldier Settlement and other uses (you saw this in the veterans lesson).
• The 1927 amendment: after the Allied Tribes of B.C. pressed their land claims, Parliament made it illegal to raise money or hire a lawyer to pursue a claim without government permission. This silenced legal action on land claims until 1951.

Métis and Inuit: the Métis were not covered by the Indian Act. Many Prairie Métis families, having lost land through the scrip system, lived in poverty on the edges of towns and on road allowances, often without schools or services; some Métis children attended residential schools. Inuit lived beyond most government programs in this period, but contact grew through trading posts, RCMP posts and missions; large-scale residential schooling of Inuit children came later, after the Second World War.

Resisting and organizing (B2.4)

• Families resisted residential schools: some hid children or kept them home; others petitioned for schools near home. Children spoke their languages in secret and supported one another. Communities kept ceremonies, stories and languages alive, sometimes in secret.
• The Allied Tribes of British Columbia (1916), led by people such as Peter Kelly (Haida) and Andrew Paull (Squamish), united many B.C. Nations to press for recognition of Aboriginal title, since most B.C. land had never been covered by treaty. A parliamentary committee rejected their claims in 1927, and the government then banned raising funds for claims.
• The League of Indians of Canada (1919) was founded by F. O. Loft (Onondeyoh), a Mohawk veteran from Six Nations of the Grand River. It was one of the first attempts to unite First Nations across Canada. Its goals included protecting reserve lands, ending compulsory enfranchisement, better education without loss of culture, and the right to vote without losing status. The government watched Loft closely and threatened to enfranchise him. The League struggled to unite Nations divided by distance, language and religion, but it inspired later organizations in the West and, decades later, national First Nations organizations.
• Deskaheh's appeal to the League of Nations (1923) showed Haudenosaunee diplomacy (autonomy lesson).
• Métis organizing: in the late 1920s, Métis leaders in Alberta, including Joseph Dion, Malcolm Norris and Jim Brady, began organizing to win land and services for Métis communities; their association, formally organized in 1932, is today's Métis Nation of Alberta (since 2023 also called the Otipemisiwak Métis Government), which dates its own founding to 1928.

Long-term consequences and today

The last federally run residential school closed in 1996. Survivors spoke out for decades. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2008–2015) heard thousands of Survivors and issued 94 Calls to Action. Since 2021, 30 September has been the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Communities are searching for the graves of children who never came home, and leading the revival of languages, ceremonies and self-governed education. Studying 1914–1929 helps explain why reconciliation is needed: the harm was the result of deliberate policy, built on racist attitudes.